Title: Raptor Recalibration, Game 5: Bucks switching, Kawhi Leonard’s impossible hands, Mengke Bateer and moreDate: May 24, 2019Original Source:The AthleticSynopsis: In my latest for The Athletic, my playoff day-after playoff column looked at the Raptors taking a 3-2 series lead against the Bucks and playing themselves within a game of the finals.

MILWAUKEE — “Mengke Bateer absolutely owned in practice.”

There was a lot going on in the summer of 2013. I was a master’s student at UBC at the time, and I’d come home for my friend Dave’s wedding. Dave was kind of the first new friend I made in high school and also had a large hand in me becoming a basketball fan.

To that point, I’d played and followed only hockey, because that’s kind of what the rep hockey life requires and because my dad was pretty exclusively a hockey fan. It was around that time that I got a pair of concussions, got passed by talent and size (there’s a surprisingly small market for 5-foot-10 defencemen who play like fourth-line wingers) and took a more reasonable approach to hockey. I took up wrestling and lacrosse, and I’d eventually manage our basketball team after I herniated a disc and lost my senior wrestling season.